Cold
by skyfare
Summary: The pain is bad but the fear is worse. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N. Disclaimer: I don't own them, not making any money off this, etc. Spoilers for Blind Spot. T for language. Oh, and I don't really know when Blind Spot was supposed to have taken place (summer?) but in my story it happens in winter. **

**CHAPTER ONE - CLOUDS**

The pain is bad but the fear is worse. Pain she can deal with. She went through labor, after all, and that didn't even compare to the actual near-physical pain of giving up the baby.

Fear, though…

Fear eats away at you.

Fear erodes your sense of self until you're nothing more than a clot of emotions run amok, panic eating away at logic until all the neurons in your brain misfire and spark off random lines of adrenaline and denial and terror and confusion, until you're not _you _anymore, not unique, just joined inseparably with everyone else drenched in fear, one giant terror conformation.

The human body is not equipped to handle this, she thinks blindly as the metal blade of the scissors runs down her cheek almost lovingly, tenderly, _kissing_ her (_I'll never have another kiss_).

Then again, she thinks _hours _later, still hanging like a piece of meat to be cured, the human body isn't equipped to handle whatever's being done over in the other room.

She has to tune out the screams. She feels almost guiltyfor doing so, because the person screaming is a _person_, someone who deserves to be heard in their final desperate hour, but she's going to go insane if she doesn't block the sound out. Such pure desperate pain.

She disconnects. Pretends she is not here not anywhere. Pictures being on the beach, drenched in sand and sun and sweat. In Issy's backyard with Patrick (oh, _Patrick_) playing tag. In a castle of clouds in the air, everything pale pink and silvery and shiny and _safe_. She has a cloud dinner party for her cloud guests, and after cloud dessert Cloud Bobby comes over and reads out loud that odd, abstract cloud poetry he likes so much in their cloud bedroom while she drifts off to cloud sleep.

_Not here not here not here not here not here notherenotherenotherenothere. _

Not standing up on her tiptoes and swiveling slowly, _slowly_, slowly slowly slowly until the nail gives and she collapses on the ground, resisting the urge to lay there keening. Not running running running, desperate for a way out before her body gives out entirely and she drops to the ground, raging at her useless muscles while her mind screams on, trapped in this body that will _not _go anymore.

Not picking herself up and going on anyway.

But oh, she _is _there when she finds the window, that blessed six by eight slice of air and light and hope. And when the dog comes and she feels his cold nose and scraping hairy face and she's shoving her hand in his jaws, not caring if he bites her hand off because please _God_ amputation, rapid quick blood loss followed by shock, would be miles better than dying beat by beat while the life is tortured out of her.

She doesn't remember how she gets out of the building. She doesn't remember the guy calling 911 or the ambulance arriving. Entering the hospital? Total blank. The police trying to take her statement while the doctors check her out and stick IVs in and take blood and give shots? Might as well not have happened.

She _does _remember her family coming, her father stiff and _old _and too broken for tears, her mother unhinged and weeping and promising her everything will be all right. Her sister Issy bringing Patrick who tried to climb up on the bed to sit with his Aunt 'Lex and kneeing her in one of her bruised ribs by accident so hard that she starts crying and he starts crying and they have to leave and she cries some more until they give her some morphine to make her sleep and to stop the ragged pain.

She tries not to think about it.

And now it's hours later and she's awake and there's Bobby, his head buried in his hands, sitting beside her bed.

_"You look like hell."_

_smirk_

She's okay at first. She's herself, joking and snarky and sarcastic. She gives Ross the bare basic facts, waves off her brother Greg's concern, shrugs out of the clumsy hug Bobby tries to give her when she takes her first, painful lap around the hallway, dragging her IV pole behind her.

The next day she checks out.

She calls Logan for a ride because she knows he'll crack an awkward joke or two, give her a few worried glances, and then just drop her off and drive away (unlike her family or Bobby, who would insist on staying the night).

She's _fine_, she tells them when they call, short hours later, wondering why she didn't tell them she was getting out of the hospital and should they come over and does she know it's supposed to snow pretty badly and is she _sure_ she's all right by herself?

She's _fine_.

Alone.

Right?


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO - FINE**

As promised, it starts snowing at six. Gently at first, then harder, harsher. The sky darkens, fills with white fluff, and then lightens again into a whiteout blur of snow and ice.

She presses her forehead against the cold glass and shivers. She did have the heat on (for a minute), but it made a faint whirring noise and she had to turn it off again, because with it on she couldn't hear all the other noises of the night coming to life around her, creaking and cracking and snapping and just lurking in the darkness to take her over. So she turned the heat off, and now her house is cold (54 degrees, last time she checked). She's drenched in sweaters and clothes and layers of socks and blankets but it's not enough, she's still shaking, and she doesn't think she'll ever be warm again.

Cold is good, though.

Cold lets her block everything else out and focus on her body.

Cold keeps her awake, where the nightmares can't reach her.

She _knows _it's ridiculous that she's this afraid. It's not logical, and above all else that's what she is: logical, analytical, deductive. She keeps telling herself that it's natural that she'd be—jumpy, after getting kidnapped, but that doesn't mean she's happy about it, or that she can get past it.

She checks the clock.

Six-thirty.

She checks the door.

Still locked.

Deadbolt in place.

Chain latched.

Doorjam secured.

_It's going to be okay, _she tells herself, glancing down at her hands and watching them tremble away in the dim light of her window. She smiles at her nervousness but that doesn't take it away, so she pushes herself away from the window and stands still, surveying her living room, contemplating taking a shower (_too much noise_), or eating (_not hungry_), or calling someone (_no_).

She ends up putting a pot of tea on, thinking it might warm her up some. Being in motion makes her feel a little better, a little less vulnerable, so she stares around her kitchen looking for other things to do while the water heats up. She really _should _eat, she thinks, it's been ages and she can hear her stomach growling, but she's too nauseous with fear to attempt it. What else? Her calendar needs changed, she realizes happily. She walks over to it, takes it down, and spends some time flipping to next month before hanging it back up again. Which takes thirty seconds. There's only so long you can spend staring at the month of February, after all.

Something else. She needs something else to do. She tugs the blanket around her shoulders a little tighter.

Maybe…maybe a book. She's halfway through Mary Lawson's **Crow Lake**, and after rooting around a little on her countertop she finds it, buried under a stack of printouts about cannibalization from work (no _wonder _she has nightmares, the crap she has to read tracking down serial killers).

She sits down at the island and opens it up, but she rereads the same paragraph four times before realizing she isn't grasping any of it.

_Crash._

She jumps at that, even though it's just her head connecting with the island because she can't _do _this, she doesn't know what to do and she can't just sit here, still and cold and terrified, for the rest of her life, but she really doesn't want to go out, either, and—

_Ssswhsssseeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii _

She _screams_, her heart giving a quick painful shudder inside her chest as she leaps up, her foot catching and tangling in the legs of the chair so she trips and falls, smashing down to the ground with her legs still entwined in the chair, all because of the fucking _tea kettle _going off and she was kidnapped and she's all (all) alone and trying not to be scared but failing, tremendously, horribly, even though she's _Eames _who never fails at anything (except maybe reaching her partner) and the tea kettle's still shrieking and she can't get up and so she sits in the middle of the floor and frantically tries to get the chair _off _of her because she's trapped and starting to panic at being trapped and the kettle's screaming and around her everything, all her carefully constructed denials and insistences that she is _fine _is exploding.

Twenty painful shaking seconds later she frees herself and leaps up, grabbing the tea kettle off the burner and slamming it back down on the stove, not caring that the handle's so hot it's searing her palm.

The whistle stops but her heart slams on, trembling in her chest in sync with the rest of her shaking body. She slides down until she's on the floor, hand throbbing, and drops her head to her knees, pulling the blankets around her and willing her jangled nerves to _calm down_.

She doesn't move for an hour, until her cell phone starts vibrating on the countertop. She starts only a little (_progress?_) and gets up slowly, painfully. _Everything _hurts. Hand, ankle, legs, head, wrists, abdomen, arms, shoulders, heart. **Bobby calling**, her cell phone displays, and she almost doesn't answer but then she does, because she needs some kind of connection to prove to herself that she hasn't gone up with the clouds insane after all.

"He—hello?" she manages to say, willing her voice not to shake even though it does anyway.

"Eames?" His voice in her ear—she can almost physically _feel _it. "What's wrong?"

Of course he knows something's wrong, he's _Bobby_, she thinks. "Nothing. Just…jumpy. The phone scared me."

He is quiet for a minute, and she hears him breathing away on the other end of the line. "Do you want me to come over?"

"No—no. I'm fine." Her voice catches and she has to clear her throat. "I'm okay. I…have to get used to being on my own again."

"You don't have to be so strong right away," he says uncomfortably, and she knows he is debating with himself how much to push her. "Alex, you—it's okay to need people sometimes."

"Like you would know," she says before she can stop herself. She feels bad, instantly, because (although it's true) she doesn't want to do this with him right now; she doesn't have the energy. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

For a minute there's nothing but the mechanical hum of their cell phones over the air lines.

"It's snowing pretty badly," he says finally. "The roads are icy—the power might go out."

"You'd better be careful."

He laughs harshly, as if he's surprised. "God, Alex, I"—he chokes suddenly, then clears his throat. "Yeah. You—you too."

It seems like an ending, so she nods, slowly, even though he can't see her. "Bye."

"Bye."

She flips her phone shut and goes back out to her living room, where she turns the tv on with the volume off and captions playing across the screen so she can hear all the bumps and noises of the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE - STORM!**

Eight-thirty.

_Why is time going so fucking slowly? _she wonders, teeth chattering in the cold. She just wants it to be next week (the earliest Ross told her he would allow her to come back to work). Work, work will keep her occupied then, she'll be able to go to bed and wake up thinking of the case, the puzzle they have before them (_this is one time you _don't _want to be more than the job_).

Until then, she has this.

Freezing house.

Freezing _life_.

Cold.

Alone.

She's getting sleepy. Against her better judgment she took a muscle relaxer to try and ease the pain in her back caused from being hung up like a fucking coat on those metal hooks, and now she can feel the narcotics stretching out through her body, making her eyes heavy and her heart slow but not doing anything to still her mind or her nerves or her fear. _Sucky combination_.

She gets up off the couch and begins to move around, trying to stay awake, prolong the inevitable nightmares. She feels like she's swimming through pools of lead. And the floor is right there so she sinks down to it, curling up in a ball along the couch even though her rib still hurts unbearably.

She feels the darkness of the night pressing in on her as she sits, dazed and fighting sleep, on the floor. The blizzard howling on around her house creates a wind-tunnel effect, sucking away at her sanctuary and trying to plunge her back into the wildness of the storm.

_Knock knock knock_.

And suddenly she's _wide _awake.

Scrambling (_where's my phone call help oh no not again_)tripping on the blankets wrapped around herself (_shit stupid fucking cold house oh God oh God oh God someone's _here _again this is so unfair this _just happened _shouldn't there be a moratorium on kidnapping you should get a month break in between or something oh please oh no_) reaching for her gun on the coffee table and wrapping her shaking hand around it (_maybe it's fine overreacting maybe it's Issy Mom Greg Ross the milkman milkman? is this the nineteenth century Alex oh shit stop this it's probably nothing no it's definitely something_)knock knock knock (_I'm _coming _let me decide what to do give me a minute at least you owe me that fucking courtesy if you're going to take me rape me kill me give me one final chance to make this right to stay alive stay alive_)at the door peering through peephole (_snowing too much can't see anything fuck fuck fuck shit no this is stupid suck it up you're a detective open the door open the door open the door face your demons not going to die sniveling and scared going to die fighting kicking screaming open the door open the _door _Alex damn it goodbye life goodbye right goodbye goodbye oh God oh God oh_) opening the door there's a figure on the step (_ahtalltoofuckingtallcan'ttakehimcan'twinsteadyahohGodohGod_)

"Eames?"

_Bobby._

She collapses to her knees, dropping her gun so it skitters harmlessly off down the icy steps, gasping as the world spins around her.

Her partner drops to his knees and grabs her face roughly, forcing her to look up at him. "What the _hell—_are you all right?"

She's shaking too much to answer so Bobby gathers her up, blankets and all, and carries her into her house, muttering the whole time. "You should have _called _me," he says, and somehow she notices that his voice is shaking, too. "Damn it Alex—" He buries his face in her hair, his skin hot against her icy face. "It's okay. It's okay. You're all right. I'm here. You're safe. It's okay." The words spill out of him in a torrent as he kicks the door closed behind them and sinks down against it so they're tangled on the floor and he can get both his arms fully around her. "It's just me. I'm sorry. I tried to call—maybe you were sleeping—I just wanted to make sure you were okay so I came over here I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's all right, Alex."

The tears come hot and unbidden as Bobby crushes her into his chest, his hands on her back her head her shoulder and legs, harshly rubbing the feeling back into her numb body and it hurts, but she doesn't mind. She presses her face into his shoulder and digs her fingers into his sides because he's _here_, so physical and tangible and she's not alone anymore, and this is so not good, it's just a temporary patch, but she feels so much relief at his presence that she gives in and lets herself be protected.

Eventually she stops crying and relaxes a tiny bit, her muscles unable to hold the tenseness she's feeling anyway. His hands slow their frantic movements over her until they stop, one in her hair and one splayed out on her hip, holding her against him.

"Bobby," she says, her voice wild and shattering and so not her.

"I'm here."

"I know." She swallows a sob. "You shouldn't be."

His face is up against hers, his mouth just above her ear. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm not." She says this and knows it's true but hates that she's admitting it, hates that it _is _true. "But you still shouldn't be here. I…I have to learn how to do this on my own, I have to be okay being by myself again."

"I know." His hand slides down to her neck and his fingers curl in, scraping her skin. "But I worry. It's…it's too soon, Alex. Just give it some time. Ease up on yourself."

She gives a watery snort and she can feel him smiling against her. "Is it still snowing?" She needs normalcy, some indicator that something is still normal and okay.

He knows.

"The roads are a mess. Total whiteout. There were accidents all along the road and the power's out most places."

"But you came," she murmurs. "You—you came."

He gives her a quick ferocious kiss on her temple, so hard and fast it feels to her like he's trying to convince himself she's there. "I'm glad," she admits at last, pulling away from him and pushing her hand to her forehead, trying to steady herself.

"What happened to your hand?" His voice cracks as he turns her hand so he can see it. "You're burned. Ross didn't say—was it…"

"It's stupid," she mutters, cutting him off because she doesn't want to go there, please. "I grabbed the tea kettle with my hand."

She feels the rise and fall of his chest against her arm as he breathes in and out, slowly. "Does it hurt?"

She shrugs. "Not too much."

He brushes the back of her hand with his fingers so lightly she isn't sure if it actually happened, then he stands up and stands her up and strides off to the bathroom. "Do you have gauze in here?" he calls out, and she can hear him rummaging through the medical cabinet. "Never mind. Found it."

He emerges holding a thick tube of antibacterial solution and a stalk of an aloe plant and a crumpled role of gauze. "Bobby Goren, MD," she mutters, but she sits down on the couch beside him and rests her hand on his leg so he can dress it.

He pauses when he sees the angry welts around her wrists, and she tries to pull back, but then he shakes his head and says, "It's freezing in here," blowing right past the awkwardness on both of their parts. He rubs the antibacterial solution on the small cut she has on her pinkie finger (how did he even _notice _that?) before breaking open the aloe and rubbing it into her palm and fingers. "Is your heater broken?"

She doesn't want to admit it, but if she lies and says yes he'll go off and try to fix it, probably, and she wants him to stay right here with her now that he's here (_no not good_). "I don't have it on."

His fingers slow until he's basically just holding her hand. "Why?"

She pulls away and stands up. "I was hot, Bobby. God, I was roasting. Aren't you hot?" He stares at her. "It made too much noise, okay! I couldn't—I couldn't hear anything with it on."

"Oh."

He takes her hand back and resumes massaging the aloe into her hand. It feels so good, his fingers on her flesh, that she closes her eyes and shivers and sinks back down into the couch, letting herself slide just a little closer to sleep. He wraps the gauze around her hand easily and then slides over to her as she feels herself beginning to plunge into sleep (_so tired_).

And then he puts his arm around her.

His touch sparks something in her, a sudden tidal wave of panic so visceral she thinks she's actually drowning, thinks her clothes and her hair are getting wet (_pneumonia in this cold_) and she can't breathe so she jumps up and that makes her head spin and her eyes ache and her stomach turn and so she runs tiltingly over to the kitchen so she can vomit breathlessly into the sink, her stomach wrenching, her mind drenched in sheer instinctive primal fear, and Bobby's pounding along right behind her, silent and hovering (she can _feel _the worry emanating off of him) but he can't touch her he can't he can't he can't neurons misfiring warning signs blaring the last time someone touched her gently unexpectedly was when Jo ran a hand down her arm right before knocking her out into darkness and and and and mind catching, stuck on a scratched loop, Jo took her Jo overpowered her Jo she misses Joe she wouldn't have been alone that night if Joe would have been there Jo tortured raped sodomized killed she could have died she could have died she might not be going through this right now because she could have been _dead_.

Sick and spent, she slides down to the floor again. She feels the harsh slap of panic begin to ebb into more of a firm nudge, something annoying but manageable. Bobby crouches down in front of her, careful to keep lots of space between them. He doesn't say anything because, really, what is there to say, but his eyes are compassionate and so pained she has to look away.

"I seem to be spending a lot of time on floors lately," she says when she can manage to speak again. "I'm developing an utter disdain for chairs."

Bobby bares his teeth in an approximation of a grin. "There are a lot of downsides to chairs, you know." He pats her hardwood floor. "They can scratch the floor, you have to dust them…"

"They're never there when you need them," Alex adds, and she watches a shadow pass over Bobby's face. _No I didn't mean _that _it wasn't a _dig_ God Bobby I don't blame you_, she thinks, but breathing is still too much of a concerted effort to say anything else.

"I shouldn't have touched you," Bobby says at last. "I just—I was only trying to make you comfortable. I didn't think—I didn't _realize_…"

She shakes her head at him and knocks her socked foot into his calf, both trying to comfort _him _with touch and testing herself to see if she can do it. "I'm just a little jumpy."

"Understandable," he says quietly.

She leaves her foot on his leg and closes her eyes, focusing on slowing her breathing and her heart back down to normal. "Okay. I'm okay now."

He watches her carefully. "Take your time."

She stands up and goes over to the window. It's snowing even more now and she can hear the trees around her house beginning to groan and creak under the weight of the ice coating the branches. "Stay over tonight," she says suddenly. She turns and finds him still sitting on the floor.

"You don't want me to," he says. "If you're uncomfortable with me being here I'll go."

"I'm telling you you should stay."

He nods, looking thoughtful. "Okay."

She smiles and turns back to the window as he says, "We're going to have to do something about the cold, though. Fucking freezing."

Fucking freezing indeed.


	4. Chapter 4

**WARMTH**

She hesitated when he asked her if he could turn the heat on, so he's now out rattling around in her basement gathering wood to start a fire.

The fireplace was one of the main reasons she convinced Joe to buy this house. He hadn't wanted to, at first, claiming that it was too cramped, too far from work, but she loved it so much that he eventually agreed. She won him over with images of them hosting small dinner parties in the dining room after work, laying out under the stars on the tiny porch out back, making love in front of the fireplace. So they bought the house, and then they never did any of that. Too tired. Too spent after long days and endless nights on the job. Too willing to snarf dinner straight from the microwave and fall into bed and dream of other things they will never do.

And now she hates the house. Fears it.

Bobby comes back upstairs with snow in his hair and an armload of wood.

"Why are you all wet?" she asks as he drops the wood in front of the fireplace and begins shredding paper and building a careful pyramid with the wood

He pauses for a second before striking a match and holding it to the newspaper. "I thought I heard something."

Her blood turns to ash. "What?"

He shakes his head. "It wasn't anything. I checked."

"Bobby—"

He doesn't look at her. "I think I'm just—paranoid now. You know. Not…not that _you're _paranoid, I mean, you have a _right _to be nervous now, after what you've been—it's just"—he sighs, scrubs his hand over his face—"I'm sorry. But trust me, nothing's out there." He glances up at her over his shoulder as the fire begins to burn, casting shadows up on his face and filling the room with a flickering light. "And I got your gun back," he adds, pulling her piece from his waistband and setting it on the table. "Just try not to shoot me tonight if I snore, okay?"

"Don't tempt me."

They smile at each other for a second before Bobby ducks his head back down and throws another match on to the fire.

They are silent for a while, listening to the storm, her obliviously standing in the middle of the floor, him crouched down by the fireplace and discretely watching her.

"So how _do _you feel?" he says finally. She looks down at him and bites her lip.

"I'm…sore," she says carefully. "My back, my ribs hurt. My legs feel…wobbly."

Bobby nods, his face serious, and she looks away at the shadows bending in the firelight. "Mentally?" he prods.

She doesn't answer.

"You're probably tired," he says after a long pause. "I doubt if it's warm enough in your bedroom, but you could sleep on the couch here."

"I can't sleep." She doesn't look at him while she says it. "I…haven't slept for more than an hour or two…since."

For just a split second Bobby suddenly looks like he wants to _kill _someone, but then his eyelids twitch and he's back to normal. "Bad dreams?"

"I have been asleep long enough to find out," she admits. "It's the—the _fear _of them, I guess—I'm afraid that I'll have nightmares."

"So you've just stopped sleeping all together," he murmurs.

"I _know _it's stupid, Bobby. You don't have to tell me that."

He gets up, shaking his head and holding his hands out to her, his hands that she does not take. "I didn't mean that at all! No—it's, it's the logical way of thinking about it, Eames. Bad dreams? I just won't sleep. That's—it makes _sense_. I've done that before, myself," he adds softly.

She turns and goes into the kitchen where she blindly slams the tea kettle back on the stove and tries to turn it on, but her stove's electric and the power's gone out so it doesn't work, just like her whole aborted attempt at trying to be strong and normal and indifferent to the fact that she was kidnapped.

She stays in the kitchen for a long time, hearing Bobby rummage through her house but not really caring what he's doing. Only when she's so cold she can't stand it anymore does she go back out to the living room.

Bobby's been busy while she's been gone. There are now blankets and pillows spread out on the floor in front of the fire, and flashlights and candles spread all around. Her partner is standing beside it, for once quiet and still in the light cast off by the fire.

"I wasn't sure if your disdain extended to the couch or not, so…" he shrugs. "I've got you covered, either way."

She fights down the sudden lump in her throat. "Thank you."

He ducks his head in a parody of a nod and waves his arm towards the two different beds. "I thought maybe you could…lay down for a while. You don't have to sleep, I know you don't want to, but you'll be warmer under the covers."

She gives him a look and he holds his hands up. "I'm not saying that you have to sleep—hell, you don't even have to lay down if you don't want to, we—we can do other things—20 questions, shadow puppets—"

"Shadow puppets," she snorts. It's the first time she's laughed since—in a long time. Bobby smiles at her and she sighs, spreads her hands out. "Okay. Twenty questions." She crouches down and crawls in between the blankets on the floor, scrunching closer to the fire as a sudden series of shivers overtake her.

"I have one," Bobby offers, sitting down cross-legged between her and the couch and leaning back.

She's surprisingly comfortable. "Is it a person?"

"Yes."

"Good start," she murmurs. "Female?"

He nods.

"Do you know this person yourself?"

"I think so," he says softly, and his eyes linger on her.

"Is it me?"

She thinks she sees him blush. "Yeah."

"Bobby, you can't pick the person you're playing with as the thing you're thinking of."

"Why not?" He sounds more relaxed, and she's surprised to find that she's beginning to relax as well; her body's getting soft and heavy and she's warm from her head to her toes.

"You just _don't_. It's against the rules."

"I think that this is arbitrary, and you're making that up," he says, leaning forward a little so he can see her face illuminated from the fire. "I don't recall 20 questions having _rules_."

She is inflexible. "That one doesn't count. Pick something else."

"Okay."

"Ready?"

He nods, and she rubs her hand over her face to stifle a yawn. "Person?"

"Nope."

"Place?"

"No."

"Thing."

"Yes."

She thinks, and the room fills with the crackle of the fire and the shriek of the wind and the sounds of their breathing. "Is it something we use regularly?"

"Sometimes. More so now." He glances outside.

"I don't need extra hints, Goren. I was _kidnapped_;"—she forces the word out—"my brain's fine."

"Your brain is more than fine."

She ignores it, plunges on to the next question. "Have I used it this week?"

"Yes."

"Something in this room?"

He glances around briefly before his eyes settle back on her. "No."

"In my house?"

"Definitely."

"More so now," she repeats. "Does it have to do with winter?"

"Yes. You're running out of questions, Eames. Twelve left."

"You're the only person I know who actually keeps count," she mutters. "Is it used outside or inside?"

"Primarily outside."

"Do I wear it?"

"Yes."

"A coat?"

"Yep."

"I figured you'd pick something much more obscure," she yawns. "The guy who discovered the ruins of Pompei, or the technical term for writing with your feet or something."

"I was thinking about your coats," he says. "You're very much a coat person."

"I do like a nice jacket."

He shivers suddenly and she flips the blankets back. "Plenty of room in here."

He hesitates. "You need your space."

"Don't tell me what I _need_," she snaps, then sighs. "I'm sorry. I'm…on edge." It's true—her emotions are all over the place, and she can feel them; here anger swooping in, here sadness overtaking then receding as exhaustion takes its place only to be replaced by a sudden stabbing loneliness—Musical Chairs with feelings; a mixed suicide slushie of sourness.

"It's okay." His hand on the corner of the blanket, indecisive. "You sure?"

"If it's a problem I'll let you know."

She slides back so he can have half the pillow as he slides in beside her. "All right?"

"Fine." Her eyes are closing against her will now; she keeps nearly dozing off and then jerking herself awake. "Talk to me, Bobby," she murmurs sleepily.

"Remember your purple coat?" he says. "I think that one was my favorite."

She smiles. "My pastels period. I really liked that coat. The lining ripped out, but it's still in my closet." Her voice is trailing off as she speaks. Goren stays quiet for a long time, his eyes on her. "You're trying to let me sleep," she murmurs.

"Guilty."

"I don't want to," she whispers.

"I'm right here," he says softly. He moves as if to touch her shoulder but then he doesn't. "Just…try and sleep, Alex. You're safe."

"Safe," she echoes. She finds his hand under the blankets and grips it. His thumb begins to rub her hand, the motion lulling her closer and closer to sleep. "Damn it Goren," she mutters right as her eyes close. Bobby smiles painfully above her head and keeps her hand in his, not intending on letting go anytime soon.

**A/N. Not sure if 'suicide slushie' is a term indigenous to one of the places I work, but that's what we call it when someone gets every slush flavor mixed together in one bitter, vile concoction.**


	5. Chapter 5

INTERRUPTIONS

She wakes up gasping when his phone goes off several hours later, buzzing and vibrating against the carpet by her ear. "Fuck," he mutters, letting go of her hand and grabbing the phone. "Eames, I'm sorry. Hello?" he says into the phone. "Mom? Are you all right?" He starts to get up but she lays her hand on his shoulder and pushes him back down so they're facing each other on the pillow. She feels his breath against her face when a sigh gushes out of him. "Mom, I _told _you already, I'm _sorry_. Yes, I know you were worried. I'll come over next Sunday—no, I'll come over before then, Friday, maybe. Okay?"

It all clicks into place for her: he missed his Sunday visit with his mom because that's when they were looking for her.

"No, I can't come over now. It's late. There's a blizzard. I'm…I'm with a friend."

Eames feels a little poke of elementary school glee because he called her his friend. _Jeez, Alex, next you'll be trotting out the best friend's bracelets and mix tapes. _But it's the first time he's ever called her his _friend_, to her knowledge, and…it's nice.

"I'm sleeping over. What are _you_ doing up so lateanyway?"

"Can't sleep," Alex suddenly hears through the cell phone as his mother's voice begins to rise in irritation. "And what are you, a twelve year old _girl_? Are you giggling and braiding each other's hair and talking about your crushes? I don't think you're supposed to be having sleepovers at your age, Robert!"

"Mom—" he tries.

"No, you _listen_ to me. You never listen to me. I want you to come over here and tell these doctors to leave me _alone_. I'm sick of all these tests and needles and medicine. It's not working. It's making me sicker."

"The nausea again?" He tries to get up again but Alex grabs a fistful of his shirt and keeps him down on the ground with her. He glances at her, frustrated, but then his eyes soften and he reaches out, touches her hair gently. "Get the doctors to give you more compazine, Ma."

"_It's not working_," she snaps. "I need you to come down here and take me home, right now. Right now, Robert!"

He closes his eyes and rubs his hand over his forehead. "I'll—I'll come in the morning, Ma. Right away. I'm sure the roads are all still blocked off tonight because of the storm."

"You just don't want to leave your _friend_," she says, her voice rising.

He doesn't say anything.

"_Fine_," his mom yells into the phone. "Just leave your poor sick mother here at the mercy of all these doctors who don't give a damn!"

Dial tone.

He closes his phone slowly. "I should—go," he says, refusing to look at Eames.

She hesitates, but he's pushed _her_ outside what she's comfortable with tonight, so she refuses to feel bad about reciprocating. "Aren't there nurses on duty all night long? I'm not trying to tell you what to do, Bobby, but they probably already know."

"That's—it's a bad combination of her medicine, I think. It makes her paranoid."

She watches him until he drags his eyes up to reluctantly meet hers. "So would the schizophrenia," Alex whispers. She takes his hand again, his fingers stiff and unyielding this time. "Call her doctors, let them know—but you're right, the roads are probably shut down, and even if they're not it would be practically suicide to go out on them. And with your driving…" she adds, trying to get him to smile, but he doesn't.

"I'm the only one that can calm her down," he says finally.

She lets go of his hand and lays her hand on his cheek. "They can give her something to make her sleep until morning."

He closes his eyes, opens them again and looks at her. "It's just hard—letting her go. Letting things like this go."

She nods. "I'm sure it is. But you have to look out for yourself, too, you can't ignore that."

He blinks, pulls away from her touch. "I'm supposed to be the one comforting _you_."

"You have been. You are." She hands him his cell phone. "Call her doctors and then come back here to me."

A muscle works in his jaw as he jerkily nods and gets out of their makeshift bed and goes into the next room to make the call.

He returns fifteen minutes later, his face lined and grim. He doesn't say anything as he throws another log on the fire and then joins her on the floor again.

"How'd it go?"

He shakes his head. "So you got some sleep then? That's good."

She burrows down under the blankets so her head's just resting on his shoulder. "Always the caretaker," she murmurs as he hesitantly rests a hand on her back, up near her shoulders.

"Go back to sleep," he murmurs back.

"Not unless you do, too."

"I'll try," he says. "Okay?"

She nods against his shoulder and closes her eyes and sets her jaw against the noises of the night, the nightmares lurking in the shadows, waiting to overtake her.


	6. Chapter 6

**PERCEPTIONS **

Four am.

She's awake again. Not because she thought she heard a noise (although she did) or because she's cold again (even though the fire's dying). No, if she had to guess, she'd say she woke up because she's suddenly just _sad_. Not panicky, not right now, not anxious or nervous or shaky, just…sad. Sad for herself and for Bobby and for his mother and for the doctors that have to take care of her and for anyone on the roads tonight and…the world, really, the wide explosive world, with all its nuances and details and uncertainties, all its problems that will never be resolved.

Bobby's apparently dead to the world so she snuggles up closer to him, trying to soak up warmth from his body. Even in sleep, though, he is closed off, not giving off any heat for her to use. His hand's still on her back—it's as if he's trying to do the right thing by holding her and comforting her, but she doesn't want him to do it because he feels like he _has_ to, because she's upset and she's his partner; she wants him to do it because he wants to—perhaps the oldest marital argument ever("I want you to _want _to do the dishes." "Why would I _want _to do the dishes?"), but theirs is not a marriage; theirs is a partnership and something more and complicated and unnamed.

***

Alex just woke up. He can tell because she moans a little and shivers, and then she shifts up against him as he's pretending to be asleep. He pretends a lot of things these days. Pretends he isn't secretly sad and furious with his mother for making everything so fucking difficult. Pretends he doesn't want to kill Declan for twisting his daughter into—that. Pretends he isn't thinking about stationing himself by Eames' side every minute for the rest of both of their lives, because no matter how unhealthy it would be for both of them it would almost be better than this, this just _watching_ his Eames struggling and hurting and trying to push through this but not quite making it.

It's killing him that he can't do more for her. It's her battle, he knows, she is her own person and fully capable of handling herself without his probably unwanted help, but it hits him so hard that he wants to move continents to help her; he'd push all the lands of the world back into Pangaea if it would only make her okay again.

His shirt is getting wet. He cracks an eye open, peeks down at her. And one two three _pain _expanding, redoubling, because she's crying again and sniffling softly and rubbing her nose on her wrist quietly, not even _thinking _of waking him up to chase the demons away because (one) he can't and (two) she is so determined to get through this on her own that (he thinks) she's only making it harder on herself.

Everybody needs someone, sometimes. It might be hard to recognize, but it's true.

But it's what she wants, so he keeps parodying sleep and resting his hand light on her back and giving her her space as she cries away, even though all he wants, right now, is to crush her to him.

***

Okay, _now _she wants him to hold her. She fought it so much, his coming over and his suggestions that she _sleep _and all the ways he tried to comfort her, but she's so tired and sad and she doesn't know what to do anymore, she can't _do _this, she's counseled victims before but never realized until now how fucking futile her words must have sounded because, in the end, no matter how right the words sound at the time, it's four am somewhere and someone is crying and there are no words, after all. She rubs her forehead against his shirt, back and forth, back and forth, feeling like she's three years old and needing to be rocked and hating it. She never liked being a child, so dependant on everyone around her, so weak, so vulnerable, so forced along with everyone else's decisions and lives and unable to just do what she wanted.

And now she is an adult, but suddenly she feels weak and vulnerable all over again.

His hand tightens on her back but then relaxes again. She must be waking him up, she supposes, so she pulls away and rolls over on to her other side

***

He lets her go as she rolls away, but he moans a little in his pretend-sleep and throws his arm around her, trying to keep his breathing even and his arm loose and heavy as if he really _were _asleep. His fingers settle against her stomach and he feels the welts on her skin, the tender patches where the bruises are, and it's all he can do to keep still and to keep his eyes shut.

"Bobby?" she whispers, craning her head over her shoulder to see his face. He can feel her breath against his neck. Doesn't move.

She rolls back over.

***

The dying embers of the fire are what greet her as she rolls over after checking that Bobby was still asleep. Not the most inspiring or comforting sight, but it matches her mood and now she's even more depressed, because the room's going to start to get cold again.

She slides out of Bobby's touch and sits up painfully, shivering as the covers fall back and a slap of cold air greets her.

"Are you all right?" he asks her immediately, sounding painfully alert, so she knows he hasn't been sleeping.

"Fine. Cold."

She throws some logs on the fire and lays back down on her back.

"What do you want?" Bobby asks her softly, his voice echoing into her ear through her head. "I…don't know what to do, Alex. I don't know if I should…give you a hug, or let you alone, or talk, or…anything, anymore."

She waits until she's sure her voice is steady before she speaks. "I don't want you to treat me any differently. I'm still the same person, Bobby. I don't…I don't want anything to be different because of…this."

"But it _is _going to be different," he says gently, and she hears the twinge in his voice. "You were kidnapped." His voice gets softer. "Tortured. You thought you were going to die. You aren't going to see things the same way you did before."

"She doesn't have the right to change me." She hears her voice shaking and cracking. So un-Eames-like. "She doesn't have the right to have _anything_ be different because of what she did to me, other than her being thrown in jail. She—she deserves to fade away into obscurity and _be forgotten_."

Bobby doesn't do anything, doesn't speak or move or flinch, so they both just lay there, stiff and uncomfortable and miserable.

"I think now would be the time for a hug," she says finally, and the words are barely out of her mouth before he turns to her and wraps his arms around her and inhales a ragged breath as she buries her face in the crook of his neck.

"I don't want to hurt you," he murmurs, keeping his arms light around her waist. "I know you're still bruised."

But she's asleep.

***

Her lips are just ever so faintly pressed against his neck, moving up and down with every breath she takes in her sleep. The tip of her nose is squashed into him, too, and the edge of her hair is brushing the stubble beginning to form on his face. There's more; he could go on about how her muscular legs are pressed up firmly against his, or how her breasts are just rubbing against his chest, or how he can feel her back rise and fall under his fingers as she breathes, but he's achingly hard already and he doesn't _want _to be, because now (if _ever_) is not the time for them. Not as she's lying wrapped in his arms, _trusting _him, after being kidnapped.

So he turns off that part of his brain and edges slightly away from her, still keeping his arms around her but also keeping some space between them. Trying to, at any rate, because every time he slides discretely back she mumbles something indistinctly in her sleep and leans further into him, sliding her arms around his waist and locking him to her.

Clearly, she wants cuddling, so who is _he _to deny her that tangible connection after what she went through? It's not her fault he's…attracted to her. That he wants her, desperately, but he won't have her, because he _can't_, because they are partners and friends and nothing more.

***

She wants something more than this—this clumsiness and terror and faking sleep in the night (if he can pretend to be asleep so can she). She wants something more, but she doesn't know…what, exactly.  
She wants everything to be okay again.

She wants to feel _safe_.

She wants it to be _morning_, so they can get up and forsake this terrible wooden charade of sleep and space and go on as usual, talking and laughing and moving, without the stifling layer of darkness around them, without….things pressed into legs. Yes, she can feel it, but she's trying not to think about it because that opens up an entirely new avenue she's not sure if she wants to travel down (then why does she keep moving closer?).

She wants…her partner (maybe).

This night feels like it's been a release of something, a…loosening.

But she keeps her eyes closed and her arms around Bobby and her face in his neck and she waits for morning and absolution and the release from fear that she's not sure will ever come.

**A/N. So the lines "I want you to _want _to do the dishes," and "Why would I _want _to do the dishes?" are from the movie The Break Up (the movie's sole saving grace, in my opinion, was that Vincent D'Onofrio was in it). Again, I don't own the characters, or the movie, etc., just to cover my internet ass. Also, I just figured out how to change the chapter names in the little toolbar thing at the top (my current college computer course is _really _paying off), but I figured it would look stupid if I changed it halfway through. So, the words in bold at the beginning of the chapter are the chapter titles. One more to go! (I think).**


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN – ALL PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR**

Sleep is so close, so _right there _until Bobby bends his head to hers and brushes his lips across her cheek.

Sleep is instantly forgotten.

She opens her eyes, stares at him.

"Sorry," he murmurs. "I just…needed to do that. I thought you were sleeping." She raises her eyebrows at him. "I just"—he sighs—"had to convince myself that you were—that you were really here."

"I'm here," she whispers. "I think."

He kisses her cheek again. "You are."

"I don't…_feel _like I am." She doesn't look at him. "I don't feel like myself. It's like I _know _that I'm here, but everything feels like it's changed. I look at things differently. I feel different." She can't _believe _she's telling him all this, but it's pouring out of her and it feels so good and so bad at the same time, like a shot of prednisone in the ass to treat an allergic reaction—you know you need it to feel better, but hell, it's still a needle in the ass. "It's like I'm watching everything happen around me, but nothing seem real. The only thing that actually does feel real is when I close my eyes and—and I'm back in that basement, listening to the screams. Waiting for my turn."

Bobby listens to her silently, his fingers rubbing rhythmically across her back.

"And I know that it's unrealistic to expect to be fine immediately, but…I want to be. I don't want to have to fight my way through the 'treatment,' the 'processing,' the 'recovery.' I just"—her voice cracks—"want to be normal again."

"You'll get there," he says softly. "Alex. You know—"

"I _know _I will, but I'm sick of feeling like this."

He runs his finger from her neck to her lower back, dragging it around her side. "I don't think there's anything you can really to do speed it up, you know? It's like a cold—it has to run its course."

"Fuck that. I want to feel like I'm _here_ again." She grabs his side. Slides her hand up his back over his neck and into his hair, her fingers twisting in his curls.

He hesitates before leaning his forehead, warm and firm and heavy, against hers. "You are, most definitely, here."  
"Convince me."

"That sounds like a challenge, Eames." His lips just _barely _touch hers when he speaks.

She smiles.

"Hasn't this whole night been a challenge?"

"Everything's been a challenge, lately," he mutters. He burrows down under the blankets, tugs her closer to him and wraps his arms firmly around her. "I'm starting to realize that nothing's easy anymore. Nothing—except this."

"Be more specific," she murmurs, her lips dragging across his jawline (_he's _definitely here, at least, and if her lips are against him then that must mean she's here, too).

He shivers. "You. Us. This. I mean, I know we have our moments, but it feels like this is the one thing I don't have to…force, lately. I don't know. I…I like this. No matter what. I like _us_. We're good together."

She nods. Kisses him once, firmly, briefly, right on the mouth—their lips fit together perfectly, warm and wet and _alive _and here and then they break apart, drenched in the taste of each other. "We _are _good together."

"Right," he mumbles, sounding punch-drunk and unsteady. "Alex…I feel you."

"I feel you too," she whispers.

"And if I feel you, and you feel me, then you're definitely here, right?"

She gives him one more little kiss, then plunges her face into the side of his neck and closes her eyes.

"I'm convinced."

She waits for sleep.


	8. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE - CLOUDS, AGAIN**

She feels hazy when she wakes up; like she's walked out of an air conditioned room into thick summer humidity and she can't shake either atmosphere so they both cling to her, entangling her.

Confusing her.

At dawn she finally went to sleep for real and so did Bobby. They woke up at exactly the same time a couple of hours later—a moment, a quick intake of breath, a fluttering of eyelids, and now they're here, twisted and twined through the other like necklaces lying in a pool at the bottom of a forgotten jewelry box.

And no one's moving, neither one of them making the slightest effort to shake themselves free.

"It's cold," Bobby mutters into her shoulder.

"Fire must've gone out." She doesn't feel like rolling over to check.

Bobby looks up briefly, glancing over her at the fireplace before dropping his head, warm and heavy and thatched with curls, back down to rest just above her chest.

"It did."

"Mmmm."

His phone vibrates just above her head. She tenses, but he makes no move to grab it.

"I'm glad you came over," she says.

"Me too."

"Really?" she murmurs into his ear.

She can feel his smile through her shirt.

"Yeah. How's your hand?"

She thinks about it, flexes her fingers a little.

"I'll live."

"Damn straight," he mutters, and she laughs at the sudden shot of joy she feels, the quick vibrant throb in her chest because she is alive and she will see the sky and she will work and she will be warm and she _will _feel safe, again.

It might take some time (_unfortunately_), but it _will _happen.

And maybe someday she will have a real dinner party for her real guests, and after real dessert Real Bobby will come over and read out loud that odd, abstract real poetry he likes so much in their real bedroom while she drifts off to real sleep.

Maybe.

Who knows?

The sky is endless.

So are the possibilities.

***

Okay, I have one.

Person place or thing?

None of the above, really.

None of the above…

Hmmm.

Is it…a theory?

Some might say.

Is it based in fact?

Perhaps.

Based in emotion?

Definitely.

Is it logical?

Not hardly.

You're running out of questions here.

Does it have to do with these two people?

Duh.

Did…it happen that night?

Perhaps. Might've happened before, though.

I don't need any extra hints, thanks. I think I've got it now.

Then let's hear it.

But it's…overdone. Cliché. Applied too often to situations where it shouldn't apply at all. Said in place of _I like you fuck me you're familiar to me goodbye_.

True.

All true.

But there has to be some truth in clichés because otherwise, well, they _wouldn't _be clichés, they'd just fade out of our lexicon, unimportant, a mere flickering molecular blip of a stupid statement.

So let's hear it.

Is it…

(cough, clear throat)

_Love?_

(blush)

Ah.

Well…

Maybe.

**A/N. So this last bits might make more sense if you go back and read the first and fourth chapters again, because (not to spell it out or anything) that's sort of what I'm referring back to. Anyway. Thanks for reading! and thanks for all the reviews, which make me smile, because so often I think that I'll never actually be able to make it as a writer and then the last ten years of my life will just have been, you know, completely fruitless and all, so it's nice to hear that people are enjoying what I'm writing. Next up: sequel to Stare Decisis, tentatively titled Cy Pres, if I can stop screwing around revising the beginning over and over again.**


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